A lesson at the gym

I didn't have to work Thursday night, and Drew offered to grill steaks and bake potato kugel while I took Rachel to gymnastics. I happily agreed.

While I was watching her, I became distracted by a little girl -- she couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 ("three and three-quarters," Rachel said later) who was watching a movie or a TV show on her mom's cellphone. I hate seeing that in kids so young, and all sorts of ugly things ran through my head: Why does this mom allow her kid to DO that? I never allowed Rachel to watch movies on my phone. Give her a book, or something!

Of course, I didn't say a word.

Then, in the locker room after the class, Rachel was changing when I heard the young girl who had had the cellphone. She was with her older sister, Bella, who I estimate is about 6 and is in Rachel's class. They were both whining for the cellphone -- "Please, mom! Please let me watch it! I'll be good, Mom!" -- and it sounded disturbingly like someone needing a drug fix. I urged Rachel to finish changing because I just wanted us to get the hell out of there. At one point the mom threatened that there would be no TV that night, that they couldn't watch the cellphone movie in the car, and she told one kid to shut up and called the other one a brat. She ordered Bella to put on her socks, and Bella said, whining, "No! YOU do it!"

The whole scene really upset me and I started criticizing the mom in my head (I would never do this out loud, of course): Well, maybe if you didn't let your kids watch TV or cellphones so much, maybe they wouldn't be so obnoxious. At the same time, I wanted to say to the kids, firmly, "STOP IT. Stop it right now."

We were on our way out when we saw them. I was so ashamed of my ugly thoughts that I told the mom, "I guess two is harder than one," and she said, as if she had really been thinking about it, something along the lines of how, yes, she thought maybe two would be easier. Then I asked Bella her name and then asked her if she liked gymnastics. No, she said. Her mom said that she liked her flamenco classes, and I said, "Really? Can you show me how the fan works?" and she pretended to fan herself. "Can you show me how you take your skirt in your hands and sweep it around?" And she did, and then she started showing me some of her moves, and she was smiling and engaged.

The mom looked at me and said, "Thank you. The whole vibe changed." And then she explained that her husband is out of town during the week because he works in health care in Philadelphia, and that the kids are hard to manage. And she's alone with them. I noticed that one of her eyes looked completely bloodshot. I asked Bella what her full name was, and then we talked about all the names she could call herself -- Isabella, Izzy, Bella. (Rachel, by this time, was making delicate coughing sounds as if to say, "Um, let's go, Mom! NOW.")

And then I thought that there's a good reason that mom probably gives her kids her cellphone or lets them watch TV -- she's exhausted, and probably at her wit's end. And that you really can't criticize someone if you don't know the full story. I should know that my now, but it seems that I constantly need reminding.

I hope I gave that mom some grace.